appliedthinking

Data Portability: It’s The New Walled Garden

If you haven’t read this post from Michael Arrington (about the current argument between Google and Facebook), take a second or two to do so. I’ll wait.

Although I rarely agree with Arrington, I think he has a very strong point here. When it comes to my profile data on any/all of the social networking sites out there (or any commerce site for that matter), it is just that - my data. Why is it mine? Because ultimately, I am the only one who is accountable to any of the claims that data makes about me - history, friends, likes/dislikes, etc. If I’m accountable for it (read: socially responsible for the accuracy of any claim made…like my reputation), I should indeed own it.

I think bigger issue though, is less about data ownership and more (as Robert Scoble points out) about privacy - do we have any online? Most likely, the answer here will be no…and I really hate to say that too.

But this shouldn’t be a surprise, should it?